'Mount Sainte-Victoire view from Lauves'

PAUL CÉZANNE

1904-06, oil on canvas, 60- 72 cm.
Basel, Kunstmuseum

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“Cézanne was my sole and only one teacher (…) He was the mother of all of us”, said Picasso of Paul Cézanne, one of the most innovating artists of the Art history, and arguably the main creator of the modern painting. Although his name is often associated with the Impressionism, his works go far beyond any impressionist achievement, and should be linked with many pictorial vanguards of the beginnings of the 20 th century.

Paul Cézanne painted many views of the Mount Sainte-Victoire in the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence, and this work is one of the most developed versions of all them. We can say about this work that it is “cubist before the cubism”: the triangular mountain and the prairie elements -geographic or edificatory- acquire volume by the superposition of many chromatic planes. Unlike other paintings of the same subject, here Cézanne has introduced vegetal elements in front of the observer, delimiting and emphasizing the view of the mountain and the prairie.

Text by G. Fernández, www.theartwolf.com

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